Southern California -- this just in

LAPD's 'protection details' end after Dorner's remains identified

February 14, 2013 | 6:37
pm

Los Angeles Police Department personnel who were protecting fellow officers allegedly threatened by Christopher Jordan Dorner are being sent back to their normal duties, Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday afternoon.

The LAPD had assigned the "protection details" to the homes of more than 50 officers and their families after they were allegedly named as targets in a manifesto that authorities say Dorner had posted on his Facebook page.

"We've taken away the protection details," Beck told The Times. He spoke shortly after authorities said they had positively identified the charred remains found in a mountain cabin Tuesday as being the body of Dorner.

The announcement brings a formal end to the massive law enforcement dragnet that ended in a fiery shootout in the snow-covered San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear. Dorner died Tuesday at the end of a hours-long gun battle as flames engulfed the cabin where he and officers exchanged hundreds of rounds. As the gunfight raged, one San Bernardino County deputy was killed and another was seriously wounded.

SWAT officers who had taken up positions in the heavily forested area decided to fire highly flammable "hot gas" canisters as a last resort after other efforts to persuade Dorner to surrender failed, according to law enforcement sources.

Officers made the decision to deploy the gas projectiles, which sparked the blaze, as the sun was setting and authorities worried about dealing with the volatile situation in the darkness, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. Dorner had continued to fire on officers, and they feared more deputies would be hurt or killed, they added.

Dorner, an ex-LAPD officer embittered by his firing in 2009, is suspected of killing the daughter of a retired LAPD captain, her fiance and two law officers during a nine-day rampage that began in Irvine, according to law enforcement authorities.

The news that Dorner' remains had been identified brought a collective feeling of relief to residents in the area where he had been hiding out.

Big Bear Lake Mayor Jay Obernolte said he was relieved that the manhunt was over. The area was "freed of the sense of being a community that is not safe because there is a cop-killer hiding in our little mountain town."